The "ideal worker" built into most institutions is someone who never menstruates, never gets pregnant, never gives birth, and apparently never goes through menopause either. That template has shaped offices, hospitals, universities, and policy floors for generations, and women have been quietly absorbing the cost ever since.
Menopause sits at the far end of that long silence. By the time a woman reaches that stage, she has likely spent decades working around systems that were not built with her biology in mind. The conversation about workplace accommodation tends to stop at maternity leave, as if women's bodies clock out of the conversation after childbirth.
The source material here is limited, but the question it raises is not. When institutions finally decide to reckon with this gap, the real work will not just be adding a policy line. It will mean going back to the original blueprint and asking who it was ever actually drawn for.
Originally published by BusinessDay.